CITY ROOM; Seeking a Million Trees, With at Least That Many Tales

By JAMES BARRON

Published: December 23, 2011

Outdoor performances can be the worst. For this one, a jackhammer almost drowned out Jerry Stiller's opening lines:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

The parks department had enlisted Mr. Stiller to promote MillionTreesNYC, a 10-year program to add that many trees to the five boroughs. So Mr. Stiller was mugging and hugging on Thursday - mugging for a camera, and hugging a tree in Riverside Park - and remembering the Hubschmitt sisters. ''They taught us Joyce Kilmer,'' he said. ''That was at P.S. 188'' in Brooklyn.

The recitation resumed. So did the jackhammer.

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair.

The parks department had said that Mr. Stiller had a favorite tree in Riverside Park. That was an attention-getter. In all those appearances on television, from ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' to ''Seinfeld'' and ''The King of Queens,'' and in movies like ''The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,'' he always seemed like such a city guy, not somebody who had spent a lot of time hanging out in the forest primeval.

Everyone knows a tree grows in Brooklyn, and that James Dunn won an Academy Award, but who pays attention to the ones on your own block? ''When we wanted to get out of where we were living, the tenements and that stuff,'' Mr. Stiller said, ''you'd go to Coney Island or Prospect Park. There'd be trees. You'd say: 'Oh, these green things around. Trees.'''

But who knew that he got his degree with the forestry majors at Syracuse University? That is what happens when a drama and speech major gets up late on graduation day.

The tree he was hugging was a - well, what kind of tree was it, anyway?

''Spruce,'' Mr. Stiller said. ''Elm. Oak. Redwood.'' He pressed his ear against the trunk, as if the tree might whisper a helpful hint - maybe a melody from ''Paint Your Wagon.'' It did not.

For the record, the leaves on the ground looked like an oak's.

''I just feel good when I go on my bike in Central Park and pass by trees,'' Mr. Stiller said. ''One day I was tired and stopped at one bunch, around 105th Street, and I said, 'Someday I'm going to be a tree.' I started going into introspection, and I said: 'We're all going to be trees once we're into the ground. We're going to be part of whatever comes up again - the next generation, forever and ever. It's part of the life cycle.' It was one of those moments. I think I was doing Shakespeare in the Park at the time and trying to remember my lines, and suddenly it came to trees.''

Mr. Stiller was recruited to talk up MillionTreesNYC by Vickie Karp, a parks department spokeswoman.

''He's somebody I called because I love him,'' she said. In the 1990s, when she was working at Channel 13 and Bill Moyers did a poetry series called ''The Language of Life,'' ''we had people read poems all day in Bryant Park,'' she said. ''Jerry Stiller read a poem about cockroaches. I've wanted to call him ever since.''

In the park Mr. Stiller talked about many things - being fired as a Good Humor man, inviting the comedian Henny Youngman to parties, rehearsing with his wife, Anne Meara - but that poem did not come up. Cockroaches did, though, when he was describing the apartment in which he and Ms. Meara still live. It cost $220 a month when they got it in 1961.

He recounted his first meeting with the rental agent, a Mr. Harding, who warmed to him when he said he was a comedian. Mr. Harding said he had been in show business: he had been a night watchman in a nightclub, which sounds funnier than the job probably was.

Before long, Mr. Stiller and Ms. Meara appeared on ''The Tonight Show'' with Johnny Carson.

''Carson asked, 'Where do you live?''' Mr. Stiller recalled. ''I said, 'Riverside Drive,' and Anne said, 'We have cockroaches.' The next day, Mr. Harding called. He was very hurt.''

A few days later, a man rang the doorbell. It was the exterminator, ready to unpack his sprayer and go to work.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

PHOTO: Jerry Stiller, the actor and comedian, has been enlisted to help promote MillionTreesNYC, a program that aims to add that many trees to the five boroughs. On Thursday, Mr. Stiller recited a Joyce Kilmer poem, ''Trees,'' in Riverside Park and told stories of his life in the city. (PHOTOGRAPH BY SUZANNE DECHILLO/THE NEW YORK TIMES)